Why Do the Wrong People Travel? Noël Coward

Travel they say improves the mind,
An irritating platitude, which frankly, entrenous,
Is very far from true.

Personally I’ve yet to find that longtitude and latitude
can educate those scores of monumental bores
Who travel in groups and herds and troupes
Of varying breeds and sexes
Till the whole world reels to shouts and squeals
And the clicking of Roliflexes.

Why do the wrong people travel, travel travel
When the right people stay back home?
What compulsion compels them and who the hell tells them
To drag their cans to Zanzibar, instead of staying quietly in Omaha
The Taj Mahal and the Grand Canal
And the sunny French Rivera
Would be less oppressed if the Middle West
Would settle for somewhere rather nearer
Please do not think that I criticize or cavel at a genuine urge to roam
But why, oh why do the wrong people travel when the right people stay back home
And mind their business
when the right people stay back home
with television
when the right people stay back home
I’m merely asking
why the right people stay back home